- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Pentagon_deciding_the_Norwegian_negotiating_position_on_Internet_governance_.html">Is Pentagon deciding the Norwegian negotiating position on Internet governance?</a></div>
- <div class="date"> 3rd November 2015</div>
- <div class="body"><p>In Norway, all government offices are required by law to keep a
-list of every document or letter arriving and leaving their offices.
-Internal notes should also be documented. The document list (called a mail
-journal - "postjournal" in Norwegian) is public information and thanks
-to the Norwegian Freedom of Information Act (Offentleglova) the mail
-journal is available for everyone. Most offices even publish the mail
-journal on their web pages, as PDFs or tables in web pages. The state-level offices even have a shared web based search service (called
-<a href="https://www.oep.no/">Offentlig Elektronisk Postjournal -
-OEP</a>) to make it possible to search the entries in the list. Not
-all journal entries show up on OEP, and the search service is hard to
-use, but OEP does make it easier to find at least some interesting
-journal entries .</p>
-
-<p>In 2012 I came across a document in the mail journal for the
-Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications on OEP that
-piqued my interest. The title of the document was
-"<a href="https://www.oep.no/search/resultSingle.html?journalPostId=4192362">Internet
-Governance and how it affects national security</a>" (Norwegian:
-"Internet Governance og påvirkning på nasjonal sikkerhet"). The
-document date was 2012-05-22, and it was said to be sent from the
-"Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations". I asked for a
-copy, but my request was rejected with a reference to a legal clause said to authorize them to reject it
-(<a href="http://lovdata.no/lov/2006-05-19-16/§20">offentleglova § 20,
-letter c</a>) and an explanation that the document was exempt because
-of foreign policy interests as it contained information related to the
-Norwegian negotiating position, negotiating strategies or similar. I
-was told the information in the document related to the ongoing
-negotiation in the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The
-explanation made sense to me in early January 2013, as a ITU
-conference in Dubay discussing Internet Governance
-(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union#World_Conference_on_International_Telecommunications_2012_.28WCIT-12.29">World
-Conference on International Telecommunications - WCIT-12</a>) had just
-ended,
-<a href="http://www.digi.no/kommentarer/2012/12/18/tvil-om-usas-rolle-pa-teletoppmote">reportedly
-in chaos</a> when USA walked out of the negotiations and 25 countries
-including Norway refused to sign the new treaty. It seemed
-reasonable to believe talks were still going on a few weeks later.
-Norway was represented at the ITU meeting by two authorities, the
-<a href="http://www.nkom.no/">Norwegian Communications Authority</a>
-and the <a href="https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dep/sd/">Ministry of
-Transport and Communications</a>. This might be the reason the letter
-was sent to the ministry. As I was unable to find the document in the
-mail journal of any Norwegian UN mission, I asked the ministry who had
-sent the document to the ministry, and was told that it was the Deputy
-Permanent Representative with the Permanent Mission of Norway in
-Geneva.</p>
-
-<p>Three years later, I was still curious about the content of that
-document, and again asked for a copy, believing the negotiation was
-over now. This time
-<a href="https://mimesbronn.no/request/kopi_av_dokumenter_i_sak_2012914">I
-asked both the Ministry of Transport and Communications as the
-receiver</a> and
-<a href="https://mimesbronn.no/request/brev_om_internet_governance_og_p">asked
-the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva as the sender</a> for a
-copy, to see if they both agreed that it should be withheld from the
-public. The ministry upheld its rejection quoting the same law
-reference as before, while the permanent mission rejected it quoting a
-different clause
-(<a href="http://lovdata.no/lov/2006-05-19-16/§20">offentleglova § 20
-letter b</a>), claiming that they were required to keep the
-content of the document from the public because it contained
-information given to Norway with the expressed or implied expectation
-that the information should not be made public. I asked the permanent
-mission for an explanation, and was told that the document contained
-an account from a meeting held in the Pentagon for a limited group of NATO
-nations where the organiser of the meeting did not intend the content
-of the meeting to be publicly known. They explained that giving me a
-copy might cause Norway to not get access to similar information in
-the future and thus hurt the future foreign interests of Norway. They
-also explained that the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva was not
-the author of the document, they only got a copy of it, and because of
-this had not listed it in their mail journal.</p>
-
-<p>Armed with this
-knowledge I asked the Ministry to reconsider and asked who was the
-author of the document, now realising that it was not same as the
-"sender" according to Ministry of Transport and Communications. The
-ministry upheld its rejection but told me the name of the author of
-the document. According to
-<a href="https://www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/unga69_rapport1/id2001204/">a
-government report</a> the author was with the Permanent Mission of
-Norway in New York a bit more than a year later (2014-09-22), so I
-guessed that might be the office responsible for writing and sending
-the report initially and
-<a href="https://www.mimesbronn.no/request/mote_2012_i_pentagon_om_itu">asked
-them for a copy</a> but I was obviously wrong as I was told that the
-document was unknown to them and that the author did not work there
-when the document was written. Next, I asked the Permanent Mission of
-Norway in Geneva and the Foreign Ministry to reconsider and at least
-tell me who sent the document to Deputy Permanent Representative with
-the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva. The Foreign Ministry also
-upheld its rejection, but told me that the person sending the document
-to Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva was the defence attaché with
-the Norwegian Embassy in Washington. I do not know if this is the
-same person as the author of the document.</p>
-
-<p>If I understand the situation correctly, someone capable of
-inviting selected NATO nations to a meeting in Pentagon organised a
-meeting where someone representing the Norwegian defence attaché in
-Washington attended, and the account from this meeting is interpreted
-by the Ministry of Transport and Communications to expose Norways
-negotiating position, negotiating strategies and similar regarding the
-ITU negotiations on Internet Governance. It is truly amazing what can
-be derived from mere meta-data.</p>
-
-<p>I wonder which NATO countries besides Norway attended this meeting?
-And what exactly was said and done at the meeting? Anyone know?</p>
+ <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/UsingQR____Electronic__paper_invoices_using_JSON_and_QR_codes.html">UsingQR - "Electronic" paper invoices using JSON and QR codes</a></div>
+ <div class="date">19th March 2016</div>
+ <div class="body"><p>Back in 2013 I proposed
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Electronic__paper_invoices___using_vCard_in_a_QR_code.html">a
+way to make paper and PDF invoices easier to process electronically by
+adding a QR code with the key information about the invoice</a>. I
+suggested using vCard field definition, to get some standard format
+for name and address, but any format would work. I did not do
+anything about the proposal, but hoped someone one day would make
+something like it. It would make it possible to efficiently send
+machine readable invoices directly between seller and buyer.</p>
+
+<p>This was the background when I came across a proposal and
+specification from the web based accounting and invoicing supplier
+<a href="http://www.visma.com/">Visma</a> in Sweden called
+<a href="http://usingqr.com/">UsingQR</a>. Their PDF invoices contain
+a QR code with the key information of the invoice in JSON format.
+This is the typical content of a QR code following the UsingQR
+specification (based on a real world example, some numbers replaced to
+get a more bogus entry). I've reformatted the JSON to make it easier
+to read. Normally this is all on one long line:</p>
+
+<p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-19-qr-invoice.png" align="right"><pre>
+{
+ "vh":500.00,
+ "vm":0,
+ "vl":0,
+ "uqr":1,
+ "tp":1,
+ "nme":"Din Leverandør",
+ "cc":"NO",
+ "cid":"997912345 MVA",
+ "iref":"12300001",
+ "idt":"20151022",
+ "ddt":"20151105",
+ "due":2500.0000,
+ "cur":"NOK",
+ "pt":"BBAN",
+ "acc":"17202612345",
+ "bc":"BIENNOK1",
+ "adr":"0313 OSLO"
+}
+</pre></p>
+
+</p>The interpretation of the fields can be found in the
+<a href="http://usingqr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/UsingQR_specification1.pdf">format
+specification</a> (revision 2 from june 2014). The format seem to
+have most of the information needed to handle accounting and payment
+of invoices, at least the fields I have needed so far here in
+Norway.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, the site and document do not mention anything about
+the patent, trademark and copyright status of the format and the
+specification. Because of this, I asked the people behind it back in
+November to clarify. Ann-Christine Savlid (ann-christine.savlid (at)
+visma.com) replied that Visma had not applied for patent or trademark
+protection for this format, and that there were no copyright based
+usage limitations for the format. I urged her to make sure this was
+explicitly written on the web pages and in the specification, but
+unfortunately this has not happened yet. So I guess if there is
+submarine patents, hidden trademarks or a will to sue for copyright
+infringements, those starting to use the UsingQR format might be at
+risk, but if this happen there is some legal defense in the fact that
+the people behind the format claimed it was safe to do so. At least
+with patents, there is always
+<a href="http://www.paperspecs.com/paper-news/beware-the-qr-code-patent-trap/">a
+chance of getting sued...</a></p>
+
+<p>I also asked if they planned to maintain the format in an
+independent standard organization to give others more confidence that
+they would participate in the standardization process on equal terms
+with Visma, but they had no immediate plans for this. Their plan was
+to work with banks to try to get more users of the format, and
+evaluate the way forward if the format proved to be popular. I hope
+they conclude that using an open standard organisation like
+<a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> is the correct place to
+maintain such specification.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Update 2016-03-20</strong>: Via Twitter I became aware of
+<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11319492">some comments
+about this blog post</a> that had several useful links and references to
+similar systems. In the Czech republic, the Czech Banking Association
+standard #26, with short name SPAYD, uses QR codes with payment
+information. More information is available from the Wikipedia page on
+<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Payment_Descriptor">Short
+Payment Descriptor</a>. And in Germany, there is a system named
+<a href="http://www.bezahlcode.de/">BezahlCode</a>,
+(<a href="http://www.bezahlcode.de/wp-content/uploads/BezahlCode_TechDok.pdf">specification
+v1.8 2013-12-05 available as PDF</a>), which uses QR codes with
+URL-like formatting using "bank:" as the URI schema/protocol to
+provide the payment information. There is also the
+<a href="http://www.ferd-net.de/front_content.php?idcat=231">ZUGFeRD</a>
+file format that perhaps could be transfered using QR codes, but I am
+not sure if it is done already. Last, in Bolivia there are reports
+that tax information since november 2014 need to be printed in QR
+format on invoices. I have not been able to track down a
+specification for this format, because of my limited language skill
+sets.</p>
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